Memorial Day

I'm not sure that this post can seem like it's anything other than morbid. But it's not morbid to me. It's really related to gardening, in kind of a philosophical way.

When I was growing up, my Gram made it her duty at Memorial Day to put flowers on all of our family graves. (Granted, you should probably just be focusing on the graves of the veterans in your family, but always practical, she figured we'd just do them all and get it done.)

That tradition sort of faded away when Gram passed, which is unfortunate. To be honest, Memorial Day tends to surprise me every year. "Wait, what? It's here already? Didn't we just do Easter?"

For some reason, this year I was prepared. I have been thinking about loss lately. And about traditions. And why traditions can make loss a little bit easier.

So I informed my parents that I wanted to do flowers at the cemetery again this year. Armed with our best geraniums, we set out to find the family graves.

Now this is the part where you're going to say I'm morbid -- yes, I did take photos of the graves. I had two reasons for doing this: 1) I wanted to write about them. 2) I am considering posting them on ancestry.com for people who are looking to trace their family roots, etc. That kind of stuff can be helpful when you are from a family of immigrant Swedes!

I am also irritated with the quality of these pics. My iPad did not serve me well here.

We stopped to put a geranium on the grave of my great-aunt Winnifred's parents (Winnifred married Eskiel, my grandfather's brother.) Then we moved on to the graves of my great-grandparents and great aunt, followed by the grave of a family friend.


Great Aunt Ella, and my great-grandparents, John & Frederika Willamina (who I am sort of named for in a round-about way.)

 We then made our way over to our main family section, where I was working away at uncovering Uncle Charlie's stone that gets eaten up by grass every year. We also put a geranium on my great-uncle Alec's grave (along with his wife, Eleanor), and he was also a vet. (WWI, I think?)


Uncle Charlie, who is the main character in several colorful family stories. Also a veteran from WWII.

 And finally, I worked on my grandparent's grave, which was over run by weeds and leaves. (My uncle Ken, great-grandmother Nellie, great-aunt Fran and great-uncle Lynn are also buried here.) I replaced the weeds with geraniums and two dahlias, one orange and one yellow. I need to come back down and do some more stuff -- the other side could use some attention. Also, the bushes on either side of the stone absolutely have to be removed. We're thinking of replacing them with azaleas.


Ethel, John, Ken, Nellie, Fran & Lynnwood

 It was a long morning and a bit labor intense at times, but it felt good. It was a connection to family, both here and gone. And if you can create that through gardening, then all the better!